History of the Numerian Peninsula
Overview It is the year 850 of The Third Age (630-), after the widespread conception and harnessing of the written tongue. The Third Age is the “peak” of The Second and First ages have led to after centuries of cultural and social development. Numeria has seen incredible advancements, from its beginnings of armour and blades crafted from bone and stones, to the harnessing of iron and steel. This section looks at the pre-written histories, the three eras and the important events that would define the ages and kingdoms alike. Pre-Written Histories The period of the “Pre-Written Histories" is considered to both be the most influential, and the most vague, historical period for it is assumed to be a 1-1,500 year long period of constant warfare, migration and societal development within the realms before the spreading of literature and the historical accounts and manuscripts that would make it possible to understand the details of this era in depth. Despite the inaccuracy involved, the remains of ancient battlefields, graveyards and holy sites have left behind some pieces of information that have fuelled speculation about the period. This specific period was assumed to be fought between four different factions of different ethnic backgrounds and races. It's speculated that overpopulated prehistoric communities could’ve faced famines, which led to migration and unrest, especially once these new "war-bands" started to compete for resources and farmlands. According to the religious canon of Lysterism (from the transit. period to literature) the last decades of the era led to the formation of larger ‘entities’ such as the Kingdom of Greater Nümeria. Despite these accounts from the canon, their reliability as an accurate description of these last decades is questionable. In general, the lack of historical manuscripts from this period have made it near impossible to gain completely accurate information of what happened, where and when. Nevertheless, by the end of the Pre-Written Histories, the largest kingdoms (many of which still exist) had been formed out of the few hundred warbands that used to roam the plains. Written Histories The Written Histories consist of three periods: * The First Age (0 - 270) The first of the three great eras was defined by the transformation from small kingdoms and regional powers to massive nations with complicated and rigid power structures as a result of the distribution of the written tongue. However, this period was short as the wars between kingdoms led to farms and villages being razed to the ground as the nations sought to expand their borders and tear apart the few smaller nations that stood against them. * The Second Age (270 - 630) An age of destruction and reforms struck the nations with the hammer of change as warfare started a lengthy process of evolving in terms of scale and logistics. The blacksmiths that further refined the potential of iron and the people that had lost their homes were becoming a deadly catalyst to an age of unrest as the starving underlings of these rigid systems stood against their own nations and overthrew their governments once the more formal battles was made obsolete by the hordes that drove countless armies into wars of attrition that they couldn’t win. * The Third Age (630-) After the destruction brought down upon many kingdoms, silence fell upon the plains and mountains. People retreated to their homes to rebuild, many new kings rose to power, hierarchies became more flexible and the iron was at last refined into steel which would walk hand in hand with the increasing complexity of armour and weapons. Albeit The Third Age has just begun, the old kingdoms that have survived are left behind fragmented and the few that know of the past might be afraid of the chance of history repeating itself now that new kingdoms are on the rise. Timeline The timeline that has been set up mostly relies on the written histories rather than the pre-written ones, for the written histories are the most descriptive and reliable as sources of information. * The First Age (0 - 270) 0 - 25: The initial conception of the written tongue, which was adapted on a massive scale as kingdoms turned from small clusters of villages and towns with simple hierarchies to city and castletown-filled complex structures. The earliest proto-writing systems were mostly built around calculus for the purpose of keeping track of the kingdoms’ costs, but it soon evolved to written speech as kings and nobility in specific wanted to create their own epics and stories for the later generations. 25 - 125: The wars in the various continents started to accelerate and become larger in scale once the written tongue made it possible for more complex and larger militaries and hierarchies to be assembled. These widespread wars were leading to famines, unease and tensions between the lower castes and the ruling classes as hundreds of thousands- if not millions of refugees from the mainland had to flee to the cities and mountains for shelter from the marauding warbands. This led to a brief ‘dark period’, during which the rigid systems of these great nations were facing issues with dealing with these issues. 125 - 270: As the tensions were wreaking havoc for an entirety of 145 years at the end of the first age, many of the less powerful- and some of the largest nations that existed were starting to die off from their inability to adapt to the issues brought forth by the passing centuries. The kingdoms that did survive this last stretch of continuous war in The First Age had become so massive and powerful that conflicts turned from regional disputes to continent-spanning campaigns that were razing countless formerly fertile lands to ruin. To put it shortly, the end of the First Age is best defined by the transition from small regional powers to massive powerhouses that could influence the affairs of entire continents. * The Second Age (270 - 630) 270 - 350: As the wars continued and the regional disputes vanished, the conflicts and skirmishes reached a new level once the nations were massive enough to fight for the conquering of continents with new, more ‘formal’ armies that served to fight quicker battles instead of wars of attrition. Despite this development, the ending of regional disputes led to the period between 270 and 350 being known as the most benign chapter of The Second Age as no kingdoms at this point were truly eager to declare war against eachother. 350 - 450: The period between 350 and 450 is known as ‘The Great Arms Race’. The kingdoms that had been in a state of peace for 80 years were starting to size each other up as the ruling classes and royal lineages became bolder and more confident in their abilities in warfare. During this century the different nations turned from silent giants to conspiring wretches that sought to use any chance at bringing their adversaries internal turmoil in a chain of generations-spanning political power-play. 450 - 550: Between 450 and 550 things turned from mere unease and internal harassment to total chaos once the kings, queens, emperors and empresses of many different kingdoms and empires became daring enough to seek their fortune in war after 180 years of peace - even if that peace might have been uneasy. This new century of countless wars of varying sizes led to more destruction than many had anticipated. Crops were burnt, prospering villages were shredded and misery drowned the joy that the peace had brought. People started to roam their charred homelands as they fought for the few scraps that had been left behind by the giants that now seemed to ignore the lower classes that had worked with blood, sweat and tears to keep their leaders fed and armed until the conflicts languished as plague claimed the lives of men of all castes, with many noble families being torn apart to never rise again. This led to an unprecedented spike in the amount of banditry and rogue warbands which were fuelled by the people that were now left without homes or families. 550 - 630: Eventually, between 550 and 630, things started to change. As the countryside was eventually extinguished like one would extinguish a candle, the ruling classes realized that they were demanding more than they could possibly receive from the lower classes that had turned against them. The large battles and the soldiers that fuelled them started to die off as the roaming rogue warbands started to become a greater threat than the fights between the great kingdoms. During 550 and 630 many of these kingdoms as if “vanished” as countless cities were burnt to the ground and many royal bloodlines were ended by the people that had stood behind their thrones. The end of The Second Century was a dark one. * The Third Age (630 - …) 630 - 690: Between 630 and 690 things started to come back to life from the darkness left behind by the warbands that used to roam the countryside. The few kingdoms that then remained had somehow been flexible enough to survive these wars of attrition or had aligned themselves with these warbands. No matter how it was done, peace was restored. During this period many of the razed villages, towns and cities were built up from the ruins that remained, or new ones were built to replace them elsewhere. The older holy sites were abandoned, many kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Greater Nümeria declared things like magic to be forbidden and things eventually returned to silence for the rest of this sixty-year period. 690 - 750: During the years 690 and 750 things started to seem a bit odd once things such as art, innovation and early sciences such as alchemy became more commonplace within the courts and kingdoms that remained, many of which went through cultural and military-focused reforms once the remaining royal lineages started to look into redefining their kingdoms through the epics and stories that had been told for centuries. 750-: After the year 750, things started to approach a frightening cycle that had passed before. Political unease started to drown out the peace as many nations started to look into expanding their spheres on influence on their continents. However, after the peace that had brought forth further innovation, this wasn’t the greatest news. Despite that. Albeit The Third Age is to last for a long time based on how much has been made in such a short period of time, war doesn’t seem impossible after the collapse of The Kingdom of Greater Nümeria in 835. What’s going to happen next depends on a simple question: “Has anything been learned from our past mistakes?”